Back when I was a kid in New Orleans, Archie Manning (of the Saints football team) and Oldsmobile cars were both phenomenally popular. One of the highly successful NOLA car dealers, Royal Oldsmobile, built on this popularity by bringing on Archie Manning as a pitchman in this 1979 local TV ad. Let’s take a look at this piece of vintage TV history.

Archie Manning served as the Quarterback of the New Orleans Saints for 12 seasons, beginning in 1971. In spite of the Saints enduring rocky results year-after-year and frequent Head Coach changes, Manning was an excellent QB and a perennial favorite in his adopted home town of New Orleans. Manning is also the father of two 2-time Super Bowl winning Quarterbacks: Peyton Manning (Indianapolis Colts, Denver Broncos) and Eli Manning (New York Giants).

By the late 1970s, Manning’s fame was at a high point and the team started doing better (sadly the Saints never made the playoffs under Manning, but his was a great run nonetheless). Given that Manning was such a local favorite, it was only natural that he would make a great spokesman for a car dealer. At the time, Oldsmobiles were huge sellers in the Big Easy, and if you had an Olds in New Orleans, odds were you bought it either at Mossy Oldsmobile on South Broad or at Royal Oldsmobile on Veterans in the NOLA suburb of Metairie. Archie Manning wound up “on the team” for Royal Oldsmobile, and the result was a classic TV commercial.

Added to the end of this spot on YouTube was also a commercial for BNO (Bank of New Orleans—now part of Home Bancorp). BNO was one of the backers for the construction of the New Orleans Super Dome, which at the time was the largest enclosed stadium in the world and the official home of the Saints.

But the best part of this clip naturally was Archie Manning strutting his stuff with the cars and the people at Royal Oldsmobile.

One of the cars featured on the showroom floor at Royal Olds was this 1979 Delta 88 equipped with the Holiday Coupe package (look carefully and you can see the bucket seats inside the car). This Silver Metallic coupe also featured the very attractive Custom Sport Chrome Wheels and a Dark Carmine Red Padded Landau roof.

My wife went crazy when she saw this car, since her mom also had a 1979 Delta 88 Holiday Coupe in Silver with the Carmine Red buckets. The only difference was my mother-in-law’s 88 Holiday Coupe had a Silver Padded Landau roof and wire wheels covers. Just as in New Orleans, Oldsmobiles were very common back then in Bergen County, New Jersey (suburban New York City) where my wife’s family lived. Their 88 Holiday Coupe was the car my wife learned to drive in, just as many of her friends also learned to drive in their parent’s Oldsmobiles (and I learned to drive in my mother’s 1979 Ninety-Eight LS).

Introduced midway through the 1978 model year, the 88 Holiday Coupe was created by adding option package Y98 to a base Delta 88 2-door. Priced at $288 ($1,068 adjusted), the Y98 package included bucket seats with Sport console and T-handle shifter, sport steering wheel, dual body-colored sport mirrors, body-colored wheel covers and special identification. While the Buick-built 231 V6 was technically standard, I’d wager that virtually all 88 Holiday Coupes came with an Olds V8, most likely the 350 4V. The 88 Holiday Coupe package was available from mid-1978 through 1981.

Oddly, while sales of the 88 Holiday Coupe are broken out separately for 1980 (3,547 sold) and 1981 (1,637 sold), separate sales totals for the Y98 package are not available for 1978 or 1979. For both 1980 and 1981, the Holiday 88 package was added to about 50% of the base Delta 88 Coupes sold in those years. So applying that same 50% of the production mix for the Y98 package to the sales of base Delta 88 Coupes in 1979 (16,202), you’d wind up with 8,101 units, give or take. So this Silver 88 Holiday Coupe in New Orleans (and my mother-in-law’s in New Jersey) were fairly rare cars out of the ~1,000,000 Oldsmobiles built for 1979. For contrast, 60,687 of the plusher Delta 88 Royale Coupes were sold that year.

Though I’m not sure I buy Archie’s claim that he sold Oldsmobiles for Royal “in the off season,” I do know that if he had, he would have done very well. Just imagine the customer reactions: “y’all aren’t gonna believe this! I just bought my new Ninety-Eight Regency from Archie Manning!!!” Though my parents always worked with Walter over at Mossy Oldsmobile for our cars, if my mother could have bought a car from Archie Manning, then Royal would have definitely gotten her business.

And, yes, that color combination of yellow with a white vinyl top and tan interior was a very popular one in hot, humid New Orleans. My mother’s 1975 Ninety-Eight LS was that exact combo, and the look was still going strong for 1979.

Whether or not he actually sold Oldsmobiles, Manning was believable as a pitchman. In today’s world of superstar athletes with inflated egos and inflated pay packages, down-to-earth Archie Manning is downright refreshing. Plus, you can legitimately believe that he and his family would have driven Oldsmobiles in real life.

Perhaps a fully-loaded Custom Cruiser to tote around oldest son Cooper and second son Peyton (Eli wasn’t born until 1981).

Or maybe a new-for-1979 Hurst Olds with the 350 4V Rocket V8. Black and Gold were certainly the right colors for the Saints Quarterback!

No matter what, Archie was an effective and genuine pitchman for Royal Olds, and much more believable as a real brand supporter than Peyton Manning was in his gig with Buick, where the Super Bowl-winning Quarterback was shown driving a Verano. In real life, the only way that would have happened would have been if there was a colossal screw-up at the rental car counter…

But I can definitely see Archie wanting to chat with the folks in the Service Department at Royal. Note the 1978 slant-back Cutlass Salon in the service line—was it already in need of on oil change? Or maybe it was a service loaner? Or left-over unsold inventory–after all, even the powerhouse team at Royal would have had trouble unloading those hunchback Cutlasses…

And I do believe Manning would have loved shooting the breeze with the Royal Sales Team.

And of course he would have enjoyed schmoozing with the ladies.

All in, this ad represents a great nostalgia trip for a NOLA boy like me. It brings me back to a time when great athletes still proudly had their feet firmly planted on the ground, and Oldsmobiles were still a desirable choice for Americans seeking a nice, high quality car.

I’m happy to say Archie Manning still calls New Orleans home, and he is a proud father and grandfather (with some very impressive offspring). Through the years, Archie and his wife Olivia have done tremendous good works for the city, especially after Hurricane Katrina. He was, and is, a class act all the way.

Sadly, Royal Oldsmobile is no more. The prime real estate where the large dealership once stood, across from the upscale Lakeside Shopping Center, is now a Whole Foods Market. This current shot shows the parking lot brimming with mostly imported brands, as is typical today in NOLA. But back in the day this was Olds country! I always used to enjoy going by the Royal lot at this location and seeing row after row of shiny new Oldsmobiles–of which Archie Manning undoubtedly sold more than a few, either for real “in the off season” or by way of this TV spot aimed right at the heart of New Orleanians.

Thanks Archie. The people of NOLA will always be your Number One fans.

His three piece suit is a little oft putting. I was 10 or so then and don’t remember young corporate guys dressing this way. Except maybe on Dallas. Maybe a red state, blue state thing, but most red states are just too hot to wear one. Any suit at all these days on sports figures is saved for court appearances.

The reality is Archie would have been no more likely to have an Olds than Peyton would have a Verano. You know much more about your heroes real lives these days and even those few living a respectable life will generate controversy as every utterance is scrutinized

But seriously, this is a couple years after Reggie Jackson came close to a deal-on-a-napkin with George Steinbrenner and said “I’ll take it if you throw in a Rolls-Royce”. He agreed and Reggie still has the Rolls, so he might not have used it as an everyday running-around car in NYC for long/at all.

Archie Manning is actually pretty low key. He may have some “fun” cars stashed away somewhere, but in general he keeps a low profile (he lives near my Mom). So I really could see him having had a Custom Cruiser for his family–it would have been thought of like a Yukon Denali is today–nice and upscale, but “just for hauling.”

Three-piece was *the* style choice of that era. Watch any game show from the late 1970s and you’ll see the host wearing a 3-piece (usually by Botany 500) with a tie as wide as Texas. Richard Dawson of Family Feud fame wore ’em all the way through to 1985, although by ’83 they’d pretty well faded away. They even make a reference to the era’s suits in Anchorman (aside from the characters all dressed era-appropriate for 1979, there’s a line in the intro about Burgandy’s suits).

The vested suit was VERY popular in the 1975 – 1985 period. I believe the only President that wore them regularly was Gerald Ford. My dad, a banker, wore that look consistently during that period.

Entering high school, I got my first suit in 1979, it was vested, and the whole look was astonishingly similar to what Archie is wearing in the commercial. The whole wacky ’70’s look from 5 years earlier was amazingly (and thankfully) dead.

By the time I got to a place in the corporate world (in 1989) where a suit was required, the vest was worn only by a few older guys, and faded out quickly as they retired. I never did have a second vested suit.

I did have several dark blue suits, some of which were “winter weight.” It was a very formal look, and I decided to wear one to visit a very formal client in New Orleans. In the summer. Oh boy! Stepping into the pick-up tunnel at the airport for a taxi made it clear that was a mistake! Just sweltering.

I have no idea how Archie sold cars in the off season in New Orleans in a suit. The dry cleaning bills would have eaten up his commission!

Oh yes, suits in NOLA were tough in the Summer. Believe it or not, lots of guys wore seersucker and/or light tan suits for Summer. Even though “cold” is a relative term in South Louisiana, my Pop had winter suits (heavier and darker) and summer suits (lighter weight and colors).

When I was a teen, I had summer jobs as a mail runner downtown (like an express messenger, but without a bike). I had to wear a suit and tie every day, and the main runs were in the late morning (hot) and late afternoon (broiling!), with afternoon thundershowers thrown in for fun. You are right that the suits could look bad really quickly in that weather, and they were uncomfortable too.

Working in banking, I despised having to walk from my parking garage on Poydras, to my office down Carondelet, midway to Canal.

In the summer. In a wool suit, starched shirt and tie. Made even worse when it was that part of the summer when it rained almost every afternoon. And in the morning, walking into the office sans suitcoat was frowned upon.

To me, seersucker was for older guys (which is my age, today). But even though wool suits wilted, a shot of steam from hanging in the bathroom during a shower seemed to mak the wrinkles “fall out.”

No kidding, I swear I didn’t break a sweat the entire first summer after I moved north.

Off subject but I am visiting your hometown for the first time two weeks from now. I’m sure I’ll be doing things locals detest (total tourist-y) but I’m pretty excited. I’ve always wanted to see New Orleans.

If you have a chance, find a local and ask them, “Where do YOU like to eat out, just for a normal lunch or dinner?”

You may end up in some hole in the wall in Faibourg Marigny or Uptown (which are not far at all from the tourist traps), but you’ll likely get a better, more authentic, and less expensive meal than if you were to limit your choices to the Quarter or the CBD.

There are places where you’ll actually find a mix of tourists and locals, like Mother’s on Poydras and the Camellia Grill on Carollton.

Mother’s is a total joint and can get insanely busy, but the locals still go because they have awesome Po’ Boys (get the fried shrimp or the Ferdi’s Special). If it’s too jammed inside, get your order to go and walk across the street to the Piazza D’Italia where you can sit by the fountain and have a picnic.

The Camellia Grill is uptown, you can get there by way of the St. Charles Ave. streetcar if you are coming from the Quarter. Just get on the streetcar at Canal and you can ride through the Garden District and Uptown, then jump off right in front of the restaurant. They serve great sandwiches, pies and breakfast all day (the Chili-cheese omelet is awesome). Counter-only seating and huge lines too, but great people watching.

Also check out Magazine Street–lots of interesting shops and restaurants.

BuzzDog is right–just ask the locals and they will point you the right way, and be sure to explore outside of the Quarter as well.

Has anybody ever watched the TV Show Treme? Produced by David Simon, (Homicide Life on the Street & The Wire).
There is a scene where one of the characters (a would be musician) gets fired from his Hotel Consierge job because he sent tourists out of the Quarter.

Thanks for the memory. Archie who? (If you’re of a certain age, you get the reference).

By the time I was born we had moved an hour away from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where we got these commercials, as well as those for Price LeBlanc Toyota (“And country sausage, too…dahlin’!”) and Coleman (pronounced Coooooollllleman by the announcer) Oldsmobile (“Right on the corner, right on the price!”).

My family was mostly Mossy Oldsmobile people, after we stepped up from Mike Peria Chevrolet (whose jingle will be stuck in my head all day…”Buy your Chevy from Mike Persia, Mike Persia Chevrolet”).

I keep hoping that somewhere there are old videotape reels with a bunch of old local spots, preserved for generations to come. The production values on these are low, but they have a certain sincerity that is refreshing to see today.

I loved reading this post in my morning in-basket. What a treat to see a Holiday 88 in a showroom just like the 1979 we have, except ours has the grey vinyl roof. I also have the dealer brochure with the full line of 1979 Oldsmobiles and a goofy Oldsmobile baseball cap that I imagine was a give away at the time of the original sale (I’m the second owner). It is a daily driver in the summer and stored winters, and is in excellent condition always maintained with just around 100K miles – just breaking in the 350 4V. I’ve attached a photo taken last summer at a local public cars for sale day. Sadly I am looking for a new owner of this fine example of a Holiday 88. That will leave me with a 1972 Cutlass Supreme also in storage to play with. As noted in the piece, I too learned to drive in my father’s Oldsmobile – a 1968 Delta 88 with a 455 under the hood! One of my early motoring memories is riding in the enormous front seat of my grand-father’s late 50’s Oldsmobile. So I have Oldsmobiles in my blood I guess.

Beautiful car! Your color combo is exactly what my wife’s family had. The next owner will be very lucky to get such a nice example… I imagine the Holiday 88s are pretty rare at this point–not that many were built and probably not that many survived, especially in such great condition as yours.

A great read! Yes children, Oldsmobile dealers were happening places in the 70s. Olds sold a snotload of cars in Indiana back then. Those 88s are still my favorite of the 77-79 B bodies.

Payton Manning was a very good citizen during his years in Indianapolis. He is still active for the local children’s hospital named after him. He also did local TV ads for various businesses and organizations. But I’m sure he didn’t sell cars.

Wow, I knew Royal was a big chain, but not that big! We had a Royal Oldsmobile here in Richmond, at the corner of Broad Street and Parham Road. Same logo, of course. Love that silver ’79 Delta 88, and that yellow/white/tan combination works surprisingly well. On the topic of three piece suits – they were a big thing here in Richmond, even in our sticky summers. I had a couple myself. Nowadays I stick to separates in the blazer/slacks/tie vein.

Could be. Apparently the Royal group was an enormous outfit, and may still be in the car business. The Royal here in Richmond is long gone. I remember that they got on the wrong side of the SPCA over that high-stepping horse in their TV ads. Apparently that’s done by wrapping a chain around the ankle (fetlock?) of the horse, which really irritates the animal. Later ads just showed the horse and rider in pose.

2. A few years later, she traded it in for a 1983 Ninety Eight Regency Brougham.

3. My third new car was a 1996 Cutlass Supreme SL sedan.

4. In north suburban Chicago, a Liberytville dealership, Weil Oldsmobile, was hugely successful, and there were many Ninety Eights all over the place in the 70s/early 80s. Today, it survives as a stand-alone Cadillac dealership.

Well GN, it seems your wife and I come from the same stomping grounds. I can attest to the fact that Bergen County sure was Olds territory back in those days. In that particular area, where money wasn’t exactly scarce, but taste was considered to be of paramount importance, a nicely equipped Oldsmobile was just the ticket. Not too flashy, not too downmarket and “common”, but respected as a good solid value for folks with good solid values. I did a good bit of my early practice driving on an ’80 Toronado, as previously posted elsewhere.

Nice tribute to Manning, Olds and the dealership GN. Speaking of football and TV spots from the 70s, I noticed Miller High Life is running their “If you’ve got the time we’ve got the beer” jingle on TV again. Sounds better than ever.

What a great story! Can’t speak for Archie, but it was not uncommon for NFL players to have off season jobs to help pay the bills. Especially if you played for a perennial losing team that had 6 fans show to watch the game. The NFL was a whole different ballgame (pun intended) back then. He is a class act, but being a Steelers fan, the only Archie I remember from the ’70s is the one named Bunker, who was a carbon copy of my own father.

It is sad that dealership(which seemed like it was a long time mainstay in NOLA) became a Whole Paycheck………er Whole Foods store.

I can actually believe that Archie would own and drive an Oldsmobile. Back in those days a lot of athletes were not into flashy cars like today’s players. (Most did not make the kind of money they do now) Archie’s down to earth personality and “every man” persona would have me thinking he would own one.

Of course it is very possible that the dealership would have given him a demo to drive around town when he was on contract with them.

When I worked at Win Kelly Chevrolet they had a Orioles player and a Ravens player as pitchmen for their dealership and this person got a Tahoe Demo car.

It seems like not that many years ago, a lot of celebrities had a few nice, but normal cars in their garage. Some may not have had the mega bucks, and some just needed something practical to go to their kid’s little league games or go to Grandma’s house – without a lot of attention from the public.

My guess is that a lot of celebrities still keep a Suburban or Lexus RX around for the same reasons.

Pete Rose was a neighbor of mine for maybe 7-8 years in the late 70s and early 80s…he drove a Porsche 930 and his then-wife drove a Rolls…stuck out like a sore thumb in a relatively conservative neighborhood. I was also forbidden to socialize with Pete Jr or his sister Fawn because the Roses were “river rats” and not worthy of spending time with, according to my mom.

Years after they divorced, Pete’s ex would drive that old Rolls to the Wagon Wheel, where she tended bar. She came full circle. All that’s left of the Wagon Wheel is the neon sign, at the Sign Museum in Cincinnati.

I recall being in our Oldsmobile showroom around that era, and what a great place to be! It’s hard to imagine how much less great it was about six years later.

While the Regency trim Ninety-Eight was where the action was in Oldsmobile’s top car, I’d love to go back to 1979 and purchase an LS trim car with virtually every option, save for a vinyl top. Just a fantastic and roomy family sedan with a very usable trunk.

I still get depressed thinking about how badly and how quickly Oldsmobile collapsed during the 1980s. By 1985 it was a completely different world, and I just can’t imagine Archie Manning pitching a Calais, or a shrunken Ninety-Eight or an ancient Delta 88 Royale Brougham LS…

The Ninety-Eight LS trims were what my parents always bought, for exactly the reason you specify. They wanted the biggest car with a nice–but not too fancy–interior for family car duty. My mother’s ’79 Ninety-Eight LS was a bit like the car you describe–it was pretty well equipped and best of all it had the 403 V8.

Our “backyard neighbor” (across the back fence facing another street) also had a ’79 Ninety Eight LS, and that car came very close to what you envision. His car was Silver Metallic with no vinyl top, blue interior and it had the really rare Custom Chrome Wheels for the Ninety-Eight. I’m not sure what engine he had, but I really thought the Silver with those wheels looked amazing. My mother’s Dark Brown Metallic LS with a Beige vinyl top and standard wheel covers couldn’t compete in the looks department…

IMO this was a time when Olds was at the peak of it’s powers with lots going on in there dealerships. This Delta 88 Holiday was a great way to purchase your B-body and one of my favorites of the series. A clean rust free light brown 1979 example went through one of the many auctions we scoured back in the 1990’s with a hair over 100K miles, a 140 Hp 301 2BBL, vinyl buckets seats rallye Olds wheels and gauges. I wanted it so bad and despite the 301 ran perfect and felt surprisingly lively for the time. The problem was it sold for over 3,000 bucks and neither of us had enough to cover it having purchased 5 other vehicles for our dealership. i would probably have had it to this day.

Ah, the Mannings. As a lifelong NY Giants fan, its a love/hate relationship with Eli. The guy has TONS of raw talent…even moreso than Peyton, but he’s got that hunger and drive. Combine the two, and youd have an unstoppable QB.

Archie hawking Oldsmobiles back in the day doesn’t seem too far off. Even if pretty much every other car in the marque would be a misfit for a professional athlete, at least that Hurst Cutlass would be believable as an everyday driver for a guy who can afford whatever he wants. Same swagger as a contemporary F body if a bit more ‘grown up’ and practical and yet for the times the performance would have been more than competitive.

OTOH, when Peyton and Shaq put on their grampas’ slacks and itchy sweaters talking up Buicks….that was PAINFUL to watch.

In Vancouver WA, Curt Warner(Seahawks,3rd pick 1983 NFL draft) owned a Chevrolet dealership from 1990-2010. I remember seeing his ads on TV. The Portland-Vancouver area has had lots of interesting car dealership ads over the years, not all the oddballs are confined to California. Maybe start a Curbside Classic Interesting Auto Dealership Ads area. Trunk Monkey ads are one of the most recent ones that I remember but since I rarely watch TV nowadays I probably have missed out on a lot of newer ones.

Johnson Automotive in central North Carolina had some memorable ones in the late 00’s featuring a suit-wearing badger as one of the salesmen with the tag line “don’t get badgered”. Those were pretty good.

Both my parents are from Bergen County (Fair Lawn and Saddle Brook) but there were no Oldsmobiles in either of their driveways. Mostly Chevy at Dad’s house, on Mom’s side of the family Grandpa was a little more ecumenical but always from a low-priced brand with the exception of one excursion into Dodge territory in the 70’s.